Mardi Gras leftovers

How about these gaudy Mardi Gras flowers? Yesterday on Ash Wednesday, a stack of bouquets were discounted for $5 at Safeway. I guess they underestimated the number of wild carnival parties in our dull little corner of Seattle. This damp cold weather would discourage any frolicking mood--we're about 10 degrees below normal for the end of February.

Today is supposed to be "nice" before the rain comes back over the weekend with a chance of snow flurries in the lowlands. We were thinking of spending another Saturday morning at the movie theater watching the live Met broadcast of Verdi's early opera Ernani. This is the fifth of Verdi's 28 operas, and it isn't performed as often as the blockbusters he wrote later. The music sounds pretty good and we've never seen it before.

John wants me to bring sandwiches along so he can watch the live backstage interviews at intermission instead of running down to the mall food court for Chinese. At these Met live broadcasts I've noticed senior couples eating food the wife pulled out of a big purse. I guess we're now in the "too-cheap-to-spend-$6-for-a-concession-hot-dog" demographic. I'll let you know if there's an embarrassing bust for eating outside food in the theater. Honestly I don't think they spend much time policing the early morning live Met crowd-- the ushers are barely awake to take our tickets when we show up at 9:30 am.